Top 3 Mistakes Online Retailers Make and How to Avoid Them

Here are some ideas you can use to sell a "me too" product to help it stand on its own:

• Deliver it faster. Check out your competitor's shipping policy; if it promises shipping in seven days, offer shipping in five days or, better yet, three days.
• Make it easier. Does your checkout page require customers to complete multiple steps (10 or more) to place an order? If so, streamline your checkout process to three steps or less.
• Make it bigger. Does your competitor sell a single item? Find out if you can sell a three-pack or six-pack.
• Make it more expensive. This may sound counterintuitive, but it works. Some consumers want "the best" and will go for the more expensive option automatically. If you can back your higher price tag with greater value, you'll pull in people looking for the Rolls Royce.

There's really no excuse for creating a copycat product ad. Put your individual stamp on a product and you'll find that you can reach buyers your competitors are missing.

Mistake No. 3: Treating Customers as if They're Expendable
One of the great benefits of selling online is that you have access to over a billion people. Yes, BILLION. When you think of what fraction of the total internet population you need to convert to customers to make a living online, it's miniscule — a fraction of a fraction of a percent!

The problem with dealing with numbers that large is that you can view any one particular customer as unimportant. You might think, "Well, it doesn't matter if so-and-so is unhappy because there are 999,999,999 other people I can sell to." In a way, that's true. But in an even more important way, it's not.

When online retailers treat their customers as if they're expendable (i.e., easily replaced), they lose something valuable — the trust of their market.